Descriptive Writing

How do you describe an object, an animal or person and using the alchemy of word transform it into something utterly real in the mind of another?

Use the precise word.
Use the apt word.
Use the senses: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory...
Use verbs of motion - even for something static...

And take your time. Look, really look. Wait, really wait. Observe and catch your observations on cool white paper cut with clean black lines of Indian ink...

And your words will rise form the page, organic and pulsating with the clenching tension of life. And then you'll sit back in your chair and gasp at your creation and wonder how you did it, how you spun letters onto a flat sheet of A4 and made the words...live.

ZHZ. 

Love & Hate

To make any story come alive you need characters that breathe, make you smile, irritate you, who throw their fists in the air and rant and rave.

So how do you do it, how do you make a character come alive?

There are so many methods, but one of the techniques I teach is called "Love and Hate".

Take any character...I don't need to know their d.o.b. or their height, in fact, I don't want any of the usual biography stuff. I simply want two things:

1. What does the character hate most in the world?
2. What does the character love most in the world?

Then go deeper:

1. What would your character most love to happen?
2. What would your character most hate to happen?

And then go deeper still:

1. What does your character want more than anything in the world - in fact they would die for it?
2. What does your character not want - and would die rather than have happen?

It is such a simple exercise, but it suddenly makes you realise the inner motives, the powerful compass that direct your character.

But what do you do once you've got this information?

Ah, that's the easy bit, believe it or not.

You start to take away the things the character loves and you start to make the things the character hates to happen...and depending on how you want your story to end, you will either make their deepest want come true at the end of the story - or the opposite.

So go back to the story you were writing, or look to your next.

Look at the character's Loves and Hates. Then make the bad stuff happen. Make the character struggle for the things they love and if you do this right you'll create the most important thing needed for any story to come alive.

Conflict.

ZHZ. 

What's Your Thinking Style? AUDITORY!

For those of you who think in sounds or words the problems you will face are vastly different from writers who are visual.

Now there are pros and cons to being an auditory thinker. Classically, most writers ARE auditory, but there are many successful writers who are also visual. Why is this so? Well, it goes something like this:

Auditory thinkers often have a "voice" talking in the back of their heads. By simply "tuning" in to this voice, writers who are auditory thinkers can splurge copious amounts of text. When they're in the groove there's no stopping them.

And therein lies the problem for most splurgers. They hate going back. They don't like editing or rewriting. They get bored and don't see - or hear - anything wrong with what they've written.

So these are some tips for those writers who are auditory:

1. Leave anything you've written to go fallow
2. When you go back read your work ALOUD - this somehow objectifies what you have written. You can often HEAR errors that you cannot with the eye alone.

Another issue that auditory writers have is one of structure. Auditory writers can produce great quantities of text and once "out" they often believe, incorrectly, that it's perfect. How can you overcome this?

1. Understand structure - think of it as the rising tempo of beats as you reach the climax/cliffhanger. The tension should be rising and the peak should be just before the end.
2. If you start with a bang then more bangs should follow!
3. Wait a few days or weeks and then go back and re-read what you've written and do it ALOUD! You'll be amazed by what you hear.
4. Find a good reader who gives great feedback - these people are the rarest people on earth! And listen to what they say, although whether you make changes must always be your choice!
5. Read about the art of writing fiction.
6. Keep writing
7. Keep rewriting

ZHZ. 

What's Your Thinking Style? VISUAL!

Writers who are visual often claim they have "writer's block". The reason is quite simple:

Visual people have hot and intense visual narratives running through their mind's eye: the moment they put a pen in their hand and touch nib to paper or fingers to keyboard keys their imagination flags. 

How is it possible to take a picture made up of a thousand words and start it with one word?

Actually, it's quite easy. You storyboard. That doesn't necessarily mean you draw something!

Take a story that you're writing, don't tell me what it is, I want you to go and play the story in your mind from beginning to end...

Go on, go and do it.

...

...

Have you done it yet?

...

Now go and do it again and I want you to count each "scene" that you have. If the story starts with a scene of a soldier returning home after the Iraq War call it the "Coming Home" Scene and that's No 1.

Go on...do it...

...
...

How many scenes do you have in total? One? A hundred?

The next step is simple.

For each scene, get a separate piece of paper (recycled of course!) and put the name of the scene and its number at the top.

Go on - do it!

...
...

Now that you have a series of scenes in order I want you take the next big step...ask questions...

Say we jump back to the first scene in "Coming Home" which is No 1.

• What is the character wearing?
• What colour are his eyes?
• What is he/she wearing?
• What expression is on his face?
• How is he/she walking?
• What colour is the door?

Get the drift?

You see, visual people arleady SEE the story. Once you start to ask questions, the scene becomes CLEARER and CLEARER.

Now go and ask all the questions for the first scene...
...
...

Done it?

Then do the next...

And the next...

What you are compiling is all the TEXT that you will need to tell your story.

...

Once you have done this, I can guarantee you that if I were to ask you to tell me the story it would simply ripple off your tongue. Now, isn't that magic!

ZHZ. 

What's Your Thinking Style?

Often, when teaching creative writing, this is the first question I ask.

Why is it so important?

I think that your thinking style sets out how you will write, the difficulties you will face, and knowing what style you think in will enhance your writing.

But what do I mean, by thinking style? Well, let me ask you another question!

• Do you think in pictures?
• Do you have a voice in the back of your head?
• Do you see pictures AND hear sounds?
• Do you simply feel things?
  

• People who are pure visual thinkers will often freeze the moment the nib of the pen touches the paper.
• Auditory thinkers will often write too much.
• People who think in many styles will, depending on what mood they're in, write better or worse...
• Kinaesthetic thinkers won't write unless they "feel" like it!
• 
  

So what difference does this possibly make? Why it makes all the difference in the world.

It will dictate whether or not you're geared for:

• Poetry
• Plays
• Short-stories
• Comic Books
• Screenplays
• Novels

Which do you think favours visual thinking?
Which favours auditory thinking?

You don't need to be a genius to work this out.

And if you were a little confused, why are screenplays so different from theatre plays? Why, it's because they're more visual.

OK, you say, I know what style I have, but how can I improve my writing?

Good question! Now you're thinking!

ZHZ. 

How to use Robin Hood to Write Your Own Story

One of the biggest challenges any writer faces is determining which "voice" is apt to tell his or her tale.

Now, when I talk about "voice" I'm not referring to "Point of View", that is, whether a story is told through a first person narrative, a third person omniscient perspective and so on. No, I'm referring to the character behind the voice. The "voice" itself could be told from different Points of View.

ROBIN HOOD STORY

Let me clarify: if I said to you that we're going to write a story together, you and me, out here in the lonely landscape of the imagination where dreams are formed into tales by writers, young and old, fledgling and experienced...and then if we spun away allowing characters and plot and locations to coalesce...and if, to speed things up, I were to suggest using the Robin Hood tale, but I wanted you to rewrite it set in today's world, in your neighbourhood, on your street where there's a fella called Robin and a lady called Marion and a vile person called Mr. Sheriff who rules the town...I'm sure, I wouldn't need to tell you anything more in order for you to spin your contemporary tale.

USING OTHER VOICES...FOR THE SAME TALE

And once you'd written you tale, if I asked you to retell the story using the "voice" of Tony Blair or Mother Teresa or Bob Geldoff or Angelina Jolie or Nelson Mandela, each time, the "voice" would be potent and the tale would change. And if instead of using famous people you were to use people who are friends and family, aquainances or enemies, you would imbue your fictional characters with real flesh. Sans doute.

IF YOU HIT A WALL...If one of your creations is lacking in spirit think of someone who is spirited - they can be fictional characters from novels and movies or TV. If you need someone who is witty think of someone who embodies those characteristics and incorporate them into your creation.

Finding characters is actually quite easy: just open your eyes and look and feel and listen. After all what are writers other than conduits of the imagination?
ZHZ. 

The Biggest Secret of Writing

I'm going to reveal a big secret, perhaps the biggest of all. It's as sharp and tingly as a slap in the face, it's simply this:

Writing is not writing.

"Eh?" You gasp, "Zahid's lost it this time. He's joined the Circus of the Lunatics".

Let me explain.

Writing is not about taking a pen in your hand and writing.
Writing is not about sitting in front of a PC and typing.
Writing is not about sitting with a Dictaphone and speaking out your thoughts.

Writing is the process by which you fling your imagination into the real world.
In fact, some of my friends would argue that it isn't even that - it's just your imagination codified. And some of my friends would argue that it isn't even the imagination - it's simply channeling what you see, hear, feel, think and touch.

A few days ago I was delivering a creative writing workshop to some young women. I told them to absorb what was around them. I asked to them to look and to keep looking. I asked them to seek patterns and ask questions and to never stop.

When you realise that writing is not simply the physical act of writing, but the fusion of imagination, observation and downright curiosity it's amazing what happens to you. When struggling to describe a scene, sit back and let yourself sink into the scene in your head and describe it. Voila, it writes itself.

Writing is simply daydreaming onto paper.

ZHZ. 

Pen or Keyboard?

Before the advent of the typewriter and way before the PC, writers wrote with pens and pencils and everything was simple. Now you there is a plethora of software and geeky devices to help catalyse the writing process. So much easier you'd think and yet oddly so much harder. So which is it to be: pen or keyboard?

Let me tell you what I've gleaned from fellow writers. I've heard virtually every variation beneath the heavens:

• Some write and rewrite longhand and and then pass their musings to a typist
• Some write their first draft longhand and then get it typed up - and then take over
• Some writer their first draft by hand, type it up themselves and continue rewriting
• Some jot down their initial musings longhand and once a plan is fixed they jump to the keyboard
• Some start straight onto the keyboard, rather like someone using a typewriter
• Some start on the keyboard and then print and edit by hand

There. So many variations and sometimes a writer varies dramatically from pen to keyboard. Does it matter? Actually, something matters, but I don't think it's whether you're using a pen or a keyboard.

At different times in the writing process a writer has to think and behave differently. The initial musings might need to be mulled over carefully. Once the first draft is in progress it's important to keep flowing, to keep going. Whichever process keeps you in that state is the best for you, whatever that might be.

I know people, who with their eyes focussed on some fantasy can plot novels the size of Lord of the Rings. As soon as they put a pen in their hands, poof, it's gone, all gone. The muse has fled and there's nothing that you can do.

Now this is the really important thing. A pen, a keyboard, whatever you might use, is simply a device to record what's happening. It's simply the device that takes your thoughts and transfers them to the page. It's irrelevant what you use, just keep flowing. Let it gush. Sometimes, thoughts may not come and you might use another instrument to release the imagination like chocolate or a walk in the park.

So in answer to the question: keep your pens handy and keep the keyboard close by. When the muse takes you use what will keep you flowing whatever what that might be.

ZHZ. 

Seeking The Voice

Crafting a story is dependent on many variables. One of the most important is the narrator's "voice". Theorists sometimes refer to "viewpoint", but that's not what I mean here. The same narrator can have different viewpoints.

Here's an exercise that I suggest you try to train the muscle in your brain that tells stories and to understand the power of "voice":

think of someone you know with a strong personality, with a particular way of speaking, with a peculiar view of the world and then take any story you have written, any story, short or long, and retell it as though you were that chosen person.
Take your mother, your brother, your best friend, someone you admire, perhaps even someone you hate. And guess what? The very story changes, the stress the new "voice" puts on events changes, occasionally only slightly, often it changes dramatically.

That is the power of "voice".

Writers and critics have written that it takes a writer a long time to find their own "voice". Who says you only have one? That would be so boring. One thing that I can say from my own experience of writing: I rarely write with the same voice more than once.

So, select someone and write your story - and of course, you need not tell that person that you borrowed them for a while...perhaps even pick a fictitious character like Santa Claus, Sherlock Holmes, Joan of Ark or Oliver Twist and tell a story form their perspective. You'll already know so much about their idiosyncrasies and foibles, hates and loves...and strangely this can unleash your imagination and take your story to a totally different level.

And if you take if a step further and imagine Sherlock Holmes fused with an avuncular Santa Claus and tell a story from that perspective...the combination of character and voices is endless.

Don't waste any time: go reach for your favourite pen or that wireless keyboard and start writing.

What are you still reading this blog for? :)

Happy writing.

ZHZ.